Bodies of father, daughter recovered

KATI BEXLEYkati.bexley@staugustinerecord.com

Published Tuesday, January 03, 2006

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STEVE TILLMAN, a cousin of pilot Gary Tillman, cries at a news conference Monday announcing the recovery of Gary Tillman's body off the coast of St. Augustine. Photos by JUSTIN YURKANIN, justin.yurkanin@staugustinerecord.com

The bodies of a father and daughter were found Monday in the area where their plane went down two weeks ago in the ocean off Vilano Beach.

"We are elated to have this come to an end and have some closure," Earl Tillman said of his son and granddaughter. "We just sort of held out day by day as they (the St. Johns County Sheriff's Office) did."

A 1952 Cessna 195 from Rome, Ga., crashed at 1:30 p.m. on Dec. 18. The aircraft's pilot, Gary E. Tillman, 47, and his daughter, Hannah, 16, both of Rome, Ga., had been missing until Monday when a net from a shrimp boat snagged a section of the plane.

At 7:40 a.m., shrimp boat Captain Mallory Wilder, 60, of Fernandina Beach, said his 75-foot boat was about 4 miles offshore when his net snagged something. He reeled the net in to find a piece of the front nose section of a plane and Hannah's body.

Two of Hannah's friends, both 16 years old and also from Rome, were found in the ocean about an hour after the crash. Anna Kipp was pronounced dead later that day. Rachel Hostetler was released from Wolfson's Childrens Hospital on Dec. 19, according to a hospital spokeswoman.

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Earl Tillman, father of Gary Tillman and grandfather of Hannah Tillman, speaks about the efforts to recover his son's and granddaughter's bodies Monday morning. Also pictured at the news conference are Earl Tillman's wife, Carolyn, and nephew, Steve Tillman.

Wilder said he had watched news reports of the plane crash and believed immediately that the body he retrieved was Hannah.

"I knew the two girls had already been pulled out, so I figured this was the girl that was with her daddy," Wilder said.

At about 2 p.m., divers found the plane near where Hannah's body was. Divers extricated Gary Tillman's body from the cockpit, said St. Johns County Sheriff David Shoar.

St. Johns County Medical Examiner's office said the bodies won't be identified officially until today at the earliest.

Several family members of the Tillmans have been in St. Johns County since the crash, Sgt. Chuck Mulligan said. They talked publicly for the first time Monday shortly after the father's body was taken from a boat and put into a vehicle.

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The shrimp boat Captain Jeffrey sits anchored off Vilano Beach on Monday after crew members found the missing plane piloted by Gary Tillman of Rome, Ga., while dragging nets. The wreckage of the plane was found in about 50 feet of water.

Earl Tillman smiled and reminisced about his son and granddaughter and their love for flying.

"Aviation has been a big part of (Gary's) and Hannah's life," he said. "I bought Hannah a small plane and the plan was to teach her to fly after the first of the year."

He said Hannah was a good student, a champion volleyball player and she had just joined the swim team. She would have been 17 on May 1, Earl Tillman said.

He said his son Gary had flown for years, but he had little experience flying over water.

"... He was used to the foothills of the Blue Ridge mountains, but he never flew over water," Earl said.

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Hannah Tillman

He said his son's first flight was over Florida when he was 2 months old.

"It's ironic he took his last flight here, too," he said.

He praised the St. Johns County Sheriff's Office's search effort and Sheriff Shoar. "We feel like we've almost become part of their family," he said.

Divers and crews from the St. Johns County, Jacksonville and Flagler County sheriff's offices scoured Vilano Beach for two weeks.

A three-person team from FSU's Underwater Criminal Forensic Investigations Unit joined the search last week with additional sonar equipment and an underwater robotic camera.

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Gary Tillman

Earl Tillman said Rachel Hostetler, who survived the crash, also helped in the search.

"She went out on a boat and identified some buildings she remembered," he said.

Shrimp boat captain Wilder was in a secured area designated by the U.S. Coast Guard for the plane's search when he found Hannah's body, said Sgt. Chuck Mulligan.

The boat should not have been there; however, had it been elsewhere the bodies and the plane would not have been found when they were.

"It's a two-edge sword because the shrimp boat put us almost on top of the plane," Shoar said.

The plane was damaged most likely from other boats that also were not supposed to be in the area, Shoar said. The wreckage will not be removed from the water.

"If there was a black box involved, we would retrieve it, but it's not worth the danger to divers to bring it up," he said.

Earl Tillman said his son's wife Denise and their other two children Bonnie Grace, 13, and Rachel 14, were back home in Rome, Ga., where the funeral services will be held.

"We've had great support," he said. "We've had calls from friends and family all over the country."